Add UPS Battery Backup to your Back-to-School Shopping List

In many regions the arrival of September means one thing to millions of students: back to school. These days, however, a lot of schoolwork – if not all – is done online, which means students and parents also need to be thinking about battery backup solutions for the computers, networking and peripherals that are crucial to effective learning.

Schools today are increasingly relying on online resources to aid in teaching and learning, from various Google resources to iTunes U and many more. Students use these resources while at school during the day but also from home. Many schools are also adopting learning management systems (LMSs) such as Canvas that teachers use to create lesson plans, issue assignments, communicate with students, and more. Again, such systems require students be able to access them from home.

Then we have students who do all their learning online, a trend that is gaining steam across the globe. A 2018 study by the U.S. Dept. of Education National Center for Education Statistics found that of the 20 million students enrolled in post-secondary educational institutions in the fall of 2017, 15.4% were enrolled exclusively in distance learning courses. Similarly, a study by KPM India and Google found the online education system in India is expected to grow to 9.6 million users by 2021, up from 1.6 million in 2016.

It’s certainly not hard to find online course options. A number of profits and nonprofit organizations offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) after the concept of open education resources came to stage in 2000s. From edX, Coursera to Udacity, hundreds of millions of users are taking tens of thousands of courses online.

Battery backup – essential for student success

That’s a lot of students taking a lot of online courses, and it doesn’t even include all the students who go to brick and mortar schools but must access online resources from home.

School can be stressful enough, so these students don’t need the added stress that can come from power issues at home. While it’s true that laptops, tablets and smart phones all have batteries that can keep them functioning in the event of a power outage, the same is not true for the Wi-Fi networks that connect them to the Internet.

In fact, it doesn’t take a complete outage to disrupt Internet connections. Even a temporary power blip or perhaps a power surge can cause an interruption in your Wi-Fi connection. If you’re connected to an online educational resource at the time, that could cause real trouble. Imagine if you’re in the middle of a test when your connection goes away, costing you valuable time. Or perhaps you’re on a videoconference, in the middle of a lesson with the instructor. At the very least, any interruption will certainly mean lost productivity given you’ll have to find your way back to whatever you were working on.

Of course, longer outages can be more troublesome, and they are not at all infrequent, no matter where you live. Outages can be caused by all sorts of factors, from weather events such as thunderstorms and blizzards, to human activities such as utility work.

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) offers protection against both short and long-term power issues, including power surges. UPSs offer battery backup protection for all your electronic devices, including the routers and Wi-Fi equipment that supply your home Internet connection. The good news is these devices typically don’t draw much power, so a UPS will be able to keep them up and running for a few hours or more depending on UPS size. That’s often long enough to ride out the outage but certainly long enough to ensure you can shut down devices gracefully and not lose any work.

Exploring UPS Options

In a home office or student workspace, the UPS can also provide backup power for such essentials as speakers and external monitors, enabling you to stay productive through an outage.

Many UPSs now also come with USB ports, so you can charge tablets and phones during a power outage simultaneously. Keep your devices protected and extend their life expectancy by using the UPS surge protection outlets to charge routinely.

As education continues to shift to online platforms, teachers and student need to access power protection resources to ensure Certainty in a Connected World. Explore various UPS options on our home solutions page to ensure you always have the peace of mind that you’ll be able to stay connected and productive.